Opinion/Editorial, November 16, 2016

Opinion/Editorial

THE SAFETY PIN

By James Strauss

The election is over and it’s time for all of America to come together. And that’s a laugh. A laugh out loud laugh. America has never come together. It’s not something American’s do very well. Remember Joe Kennedy, JFK’s father, working for the Germans and putting his money behind Krupp Steel in WWII? Or how about Lindberg supporting Hitler personally and the Nazi movement in general? Both quintessential American heroes. The United States went through some seriously rocky times in its first hundred years. The War of 1812 almost sank the country when it was still new, and the Civil War tore the land and its people asunder, creating wounds unhealed to this very day.

Since the Civil War there has been no more contentious or cautionary election than the most recent one. And now the contentiousness, and cautionary moves of the country’s underbelly are relatively silent, yet seething and waiting. Insurgency is born of these elements. There is a ‘waiting for the storm’ attitude evidencing itself across the country, that has not been seen or felt since what swept across Europe in the 1930’s. In the past, when fascism, righteousness, torture, domination, and racial and cultural punishments came to power war has been the result. War with outside powers, and war within borders, as well. America has risen up as a dream of differences being accommodated, instead of dominated. The precursor to what is developing in the United States began to become evident when Carl Rove moved the republican party from a compromising party, into a war party. The Congress basically shut down. When government was brought to a standstill, the media was ignited to assign blame, and the blame was assigned to the victims. No homeowners were bailed out when the appreciation on their homes built up over decades was taken overnight. The financial sectors that took the money got the bailout as free frosting on top of the cake of horrid profits.

The safety pin movement began with Brexit in England, where arguments similar to those used by the right wing media in the U.S. convinced a good portion of the British public to vote for something that would suit robber barons and those who wanted to centralize and twist the power reigns over the people, but only give that willing voting public divisiveness, fear and more poverty. The safety pin was brought out as a symbolic message to heal a now fractured nation. To bring it back together, to await a time when some formal stitching can be done to heal the wound. Brexit came to the USA, a country that has not seen large scale protest movements following presidential elections in anyone’s memory. A public that’s never really been hit in its emotional solar plexus to the point where much of the public wanders around on streets and through shops wondering how to continue their lives without hope, respite or even the hope of anything but racial, social and financial ruin. The safety pin is rapidly becoming the physical indicator of a protest movement that will not go away, and is very likely to have violent consequences.

The writer of this article did not predict that Hillary Clinton would lose the election. He was in some very good company. The dire predictions that many Americans living across the heartlands had become convinced their lives were being lived in fruitless, failing misery did not seem either logical or believable. Believe it now. In a land of such splendor, such wealth and such comfort, much of the public thinks it is suffering horribly, and is being denied the private jet, limousine and chateau wealth of the one percent. Many American’s have come to believe that there is a huge terrorist force committed to destroying this country, a force that was at first called Al Qaida, then the Taliban and now ISIS, each one a minimal back cave outcrop of a religion misunderstood and therefore feared by most Americans. American’s have come to believe their overpowering military (now larger than all other military forces on planet earth put together) and dramatic economic ownership (of almost all major corporations and real estate in the world is in retreat, shrinking and fading into obscurity. That nothing could be further from the truth matters not because, as this election proved convincingly, the lying media has conditioned the public not to care about the truth anymore by convincing it that it doesn’t really exist. There is only the show. And the show won.

The safety pin is a tiny symbol. A very small flame. Burning way back, and down inside a keg of gunpowder that is so huge its explosion could wipe out all culture and civilization from the planet, not just the USA. So be careful out there. In the thirties they came for people that opposed them. Be careful where you wear that pin, and be careful what you say. The America you used to live in is still there, but for now you must reflect upon these new and startling changes because they are going to effect you personally, seriously and locally. If you don’t think so then read the front page story in this issue again. Be careful out there.~ James Strauss

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